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Children With Autism Benefit From Enrichment Therapy

Children with autism
showed significant improvement after six months of simple sensory
exercises at home using everyday items such as scents, spoons and
sponges, according to UC Irvine neurobiologists.

They found that a treatment known as environmental enrichment led to
notable gains in male subjects between the ages of 3 and 12. Results
appear online in Behavioral Neuroscience.

Study co-authors Cynthia Woo and Michael Leon randomly assigned 28 boys
to one of two groups, balanced for age and autism severity. For half a
year, all subjects participated in standard autism therapies, but those
in one group also had daily sensory enrichment exercises.

Parents of these children were given a kit containing household products
to increase environmental stimulation, including essential-oil
fragrances such as apple, lavender, lemon and vanilla. The boys smelled
four of these scents a day and listened to classical music each evening.

In addition, the parents conducted twice-daily sessions of four to seven
exercises with their children involving different combinations of
sensory stimuli - touch, temperature, sight and movement among them.
Each session took 15 to 30 minutes to complete.

After six months of therapy, 42 percent of the children in the
enrichment group showed significant improvement in behaviors commonly
affected by autism - such as relating to people, having typical
emotional responses and listening - compared with 7 percent in the
standard-care group.

They also scored higher in cognitive function, whereas average scores
for the boys in the standard-care group decreased. Moreover, 69 percent
of parents in the enrichment group reported improvement, compared with
31 percent of parents in the standard-care group.

"Because parents can give their child sensory enrichment using items
typically available in their home, this therapy provides a low-cost
option for enhancing their child's progress," said Woo, an assistant
project scientist in neurobiology & behavior.

Exposing children to enriched sensory experiences builds upon previous
research in other laboratories in which animals exposed to such
environments had a great reduction in the behavioral and cognitive
symptoms associated with a wide range of neurological disorders,
including those resembling autism.

The researchers noted that most current therapies for autism must be
started at a very young age to be successful, while the average age in
this study was 6.6.

"We believe that sensory enrichment can be an effective therapy for the
treatment of autism, particularly among children past the toddler
stage," said Leon, a professor of neurobiology & behavior affiliated
with UC Irvine's Center for Autism Research & Treatment.

"At the same time, we need to know whether we can optimize the
treatment, whether there are subgroups of children for whom it's more
effective, whether the therapy works for older or younger children, and
whether it can be effective on its own."

He and Woo are now conducting a second, larger randomized clinical trial that includes girls.

"We've observed case studies in which the sensory enrichment therapy was
used without any other therapy, and those children were clearly
responsive to it," Leon added. "We hope this new treatment will benefit
children with autism, their parents and society as a whole."